Foreign airlines let passengers make calls, but US airspace still a dead zone.

This month, Emirates became (PDF) the latest airline to add in-flight cell phone service to its fleet of A380 aircraft. The Dubai-based carrier, which had offered a similar service on other aircraft since 2008, joins Virgin Atlantic, Etihad, and nearly two dozen other airlines around the world in permitting satellite-based mobile service so their passengers can make calls and send text messages from the air.

While increasing numbers of American carriers offer on-board Wi-Fi, none so far allow for mobile phone calls or text messages. In an era of all airlines looking for new ways to make money, it would seem that charging rates starting at $1.20 per minute would be a no-brainer.

So why are American airlines behind the times? Federal regulations currently prohibit the use of mobile phones in-flight—however, that rule is under review by the Federal Aviation Administration. Even foreign carriers that fly to the United States must disable the service once within 250 nautical miles of the country.

"Since 1991, the FCC has restricted the in-flight use of cell phones in US airspace because of potential interference with ground networks," wrote Ian Gregor, an FAA spokesperson, in an e-mailed statement.

"However, in the 2012 reauthorization bill, Congress directed the FAA to complete a survey of foreign governments regarding the impact of in-flight cell phone use for voice communications in scheduled passenger service in countries where in-flight use of cell phones is currently allowed. The FAA is publishing the results of this survey in the Federal Register with a comment period. The agency will send the final survey report to Congress by the end of the year, as required."

How disruptive is disruptive?

A common kneejerk reaction against allowing mobile calls on flights is that it would be too disruptive. But for now, travelers seem more interested in using their phones for data and texting rather than voice calls. Beyond the legal restriction, domestic American airlines say their customers don’t want it.

"The answer is very simple for United—and in line with what Airlines for America and others have said: United customers tell us that they don't favor in-flight cell phone usage, and they say it is likely to detract from their onboard experience," said Rahsaan Johnson, a spokesperson for United Airlines.

Representatives from Southwest (the country’s largest domestic carrier) and JetBlue have also indicated similar perspectives.

"We’re open to any new developments and will consider amending our current philosophy should real evidence emerge that tells us more of the story than what we currently know," Allison Steinberg, a JetBlue spokesperson, told Ars.

However, foreign airlines say that it’s not nearly as disruptive as some might think. (After all, we had Airfones once, right?)

"Disruption has simply not arisen as an issue," said Aurélie Branchereau-Giles, a spokesperson for OnAir, a Swiss firm that is one of the largest mobile service providers to the airlines, including Emirates.

"In the five years of Mobile OnAir’s operations across the world, no airline has reported any incidents of disruption caused by inflight GSM. If you look at usage, nearly half is text messaging and most of the other half is e-mailing. Only about a tenth of all usage of the OnAir cell phone network is for voice calls. And aircraft are noisy environments, so the noise of a conversation doesn’t travel from row to row anyway. Also, the cabin crew have the option of being able to turn off the voice element, though again we haven’t heard of any airline doing so."

The Los Angeles Times similarly reported recently that since 2008, Emirates passengers have used their phones over 10 million times for texting and data, while just 625,000 times for voice calls. In those four years, the company noted it had received only two passenger complaints.

Is Wi-Fi enough?

Amongst passengers, there seems to be some disagreement, analysts and activists say, as to what the true level of interest would be.

"When we’ve talked to our members, we get very little [negative] feedback," said Kate Hanni, the founder of FlyersRights.org, which has 50,000 members. "I have to fly a lot between San Francisco and Washington, DC and I get a lot of media calls. I would love the opportunity to make calls during long transcontinental or transatlantic flights."

But Henry Harteveldt, an analyst and co-founder of the Atmosphere Research Group, told Ars that in nearly a decade of studying in-flight communications (mostly Wi-Fi), he had never seen "a meaningful number of US travelers [who] want to use their cell phones for voice calls."

"A Q2 2012 Atmosphere Research study of US airline passengers shows that two-thirds own a smartphone," he said. "Since essentially every new-generation mobile phone is an Internet-enabled device, using in-flight Wi-Fi for e-mail, social networking, etc. is practical, and is really what the traveler wants. Texting isn't essential when a consumer has other options to use for communications—for example, Gmail, instant message, Facebook chat, et cetera."

Regardless, for those of us who would love to make air travel more Internet-friendly (and are happy to use Skype or Google Voice to send text messages), the FCC has said that it is working on accelerating the approval process for airlines and aircraft to bring more Wi-Fi on-board.

"Americans increasingly expect access to broadband wherever they go, even when they are 30,000 feet in the air," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a September 2012 statement.

"To enable broadband providers to meet those demands, and promote the economic growth and job-creating impacts of ubiquitous broadband, we are circulating rules to help speed the deployment of Internet services on-board aircraft. These rules will provide regulatory certainty, allow us to process applications up to 50 percent faster, and ensure other radio service operations are protected from harmful interference."